The present invention relates to egg handling apparatus and particularly to an egg collecting and transferring system.
In automated poultry systems used today, hens are caged in tiers of cages with egg collecting and conveying belts extending along the front of the cages for automatically transporting eggs from each of the cages to a central processing area. Since the cages are arranged in vertically spaced tiers, the egg collecting belts similarly are vertically displaced thus making it necessary to provide a collecting mechanism for receiving eggs at different vertical levels. The mechanism then transports the eggs to an accumulating or main conveyor extending across the ends of each row of cages such that all of the eggs from the installation can be transported to a centralized processing and packaging area.
There have been several methods proposed for such a collection and transferring process, the most common of which is to provide a generally vertically movable egg receiving assembly which receives eggs at different vertical levels and lowers them to a main conveyor positioned below the level of the input egg belt conveyors. The difficulty with such a system lies in the fact that the main conveyor must be positioned below the lowermost input egg belt conveyor thereby putting severe restrictions on the overall system installation.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,166,175, issued Jan. 19, 1965, to J. S. Kurtz et al and assigned to the present assignee discloses an egg collecting and conveying system by which an elevator is employed which receives eggs on one side, carries them up and over the top of an endless loop egg holding mechanism and transfers the eggs from one set of fingers on the input side of the conveyor to another set of adjacent fingers as the eggs are carried over the top of the elevator. This system permits the discharge of the eggs to a main conveyor which is positioned on the opposite side of the elevator at any convenient height. Although this system permits a greater flexibility in the design of the overall egg handling installation, it suffers from the requirement that the timing of the eggs on their arrival and discharge to and from the unit is critical to prevent breakage of the eggs and when transferring the eggs from one set of fingers to another set, breakage is not uncommon.
Other egg elevating systems have been proposed by which generally curved fingers are individually attached to a wide belt and receive eggs on an input side of an elevator and transfer the eggs to an opposite facing leg as the eggs move over the top of the elevator. Such a symmetrical arrangement, however, is not believed to be effective in both receiving and discharging the eggs since different egg positions are desirable for the loading and unloading of the system in order to prevent breakage. Thus, on the input side of the system it is desired to present to the incoming eggs, an opening by which the eggs can positively be cradled into egg handling members and at the same time transferred at the discharge end to a position extended away from the cradle whereupon the eggs can be more easily removed from the elevator without breakage. Further, with the fingers permanently secured to a fixed width belt modifications to the installations or repairs are difficult or even impossible without replacement of the entire unit.
Accordingly, there exists a need for improved egg handling elevator which takes these different design considerations into account and provides a flexible system which can be adapted for installations with different numbers of infeed egg conveying belts and different levels of output main conveyors.